Listen First: 4 Ways to Maximize ROI

Where Shall I Go Today? Consumer journeys are constantly evolving. Every season (and these days, every second), consumers are influenced, impacted, educated or mesmerized by the products, services and solutions available within the marketplace. Businesses struggle to stay ahead of these inevitables by investing a massive amount of money into acquisition streams that are difficult to measure and generate limited ROI. In other words, it’s money — and time — not well spent.

Not Just A Numbers Game Turning to the data is critical when identifying your target audience and pinpointing their needs through their consumer journey. But just as important is listening to the voice of your consumer. Limited forced ad spend in a pay-to-play, pray-and-spray strategy is incredibly costly and unsustainable. What you must understand is your brand's organic potential, your customer’s expectations for your brand and measure that first before paying for acquisition. Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Free Web Tools: There are plenty out there that can help you understand your audience:

• Research trends in the market utilizing Google Trends
• Understand your competition surrounding those trends with Google Anonymous Ad Preview Tool
• Listen to your website's analytics with Google Analytics and Google Search Console, both which offer tremendous insight into the current performance of your website
• Ask your customer what they think of your brand, their purchase habits, where they spend their time, etc., with Survey Monkey or Google Forms, easily customizable tools that allow you to collect data from the people you most want to hear from

2. Be Genuine: Humanity wins every time. If you wonder why you aren’t connecting with your audience on your website or social channels, take a look at your messaging. Are you speaking in a friendly, relatable way? And moreover, are you putting your audience first in your message? If your content talks more about your brand than how your brand can help those you serve, you’ve already lost.

3. Develop a Personality Brand: Just because you’re a brand or a large company, doesn’t mean you can’t have a distinct voice. In fact, you need that more than ever to stand out from the clutter. Consumers are desperate for connection and nothing creates a stronger affinity than messaging they can relate to. Something that sends a signal that this company understands what that consumer needs.

• Are you messaging around your Content Pillars (and do you even have any)?
• Are you still aligned with your mission and vision?
• Do you have a strong brand positioning statement that instantly tells your audience what you stand for and how you can help them?
• Is your tone of voice consistent?

All of these help solidify your Personality Brand and result in stronger, deeper connections with your audience.

4. Invest In a Strong Organic Footprint: Create a meaningful web experience with content focused on and around your brand. Through the consumer journey, independent of a specific industry or vertical, at some point, your consumer will turn to Google in search of information. Investing heavily in a content strategy with the goal of being the trusted source for consumers is paramount, and creates an incredibly stable web presence and ultimately, brand affinity.

Are you listening to your consumer? Because they want to hear from you.

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Danielle Hughes is the Chief Personality Officer of More Than Words Marketing. She helps people and the brands that target them to develop their Personality Brand, creating content that sounds like you and giving you the space to truly be yourself in your messaging.

Justin Abrams is the Chief Executive Officer of Cause of a Kind; a long island based boutique digital marketing agency specializing in custom digital experiences focused on the organic consumer experience. Justin partners with some of the most recognizable brands on earth, working with digital marketers to drive digital strategy.